


Mother knows Best

by Activeimagination



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:54:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11503131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Activeimagination/pseuds/Activeimagination
Summary: Chas is back and decides it is time to take something in hand.





	Mother knows Best

Mother knows Best

Chas Dingle walked from the back into the pub. She had been back three days and was now fully in control again, had even got used to Faith being behind the bar. She looked around and saw him. He was looking at his phone, a vacant look on his face. He looked lost and alone and while she never thought she would feel it and certainly would never admit it there was sorrow in her heart for him.

‘We need to chat, I think’  
‘Chas, hi, um look some other time maybe I have a meeting to get to’  
‘Back room, now’  
It was a command, plain and simple. He finished his drink and followed her in. She motioned towards the couch and she took one of the chairs.  
‘So Robert, one question, why?’  
‘Chas, I told you, I was angry, I wanted to hurt him, I did what I knew would and I hate myself, nothing you can say will make me hate myself more’  
‘That was not the question, I want to know why my son is in that house and there is no sign of you putting up a fight?’  
‘I did, I begged, I pleaded, I really did…he didn’t want to listen…he gave me this’. He reached inside his shirt and fished out the ring that was on the chain round his neck. Its comrade was on his finger.  
‘So you gave up?’  
‘I had no choice, he made it clear he didn’t want me around. I was there when he came back and he told me to leave, I didn’t want him to hate me’  
‘Hate you? Hate you, you must be kidding me. You had him bloody tied to a radiator waiting to kill him and that didn’t make him hate you’.  
‘Chas, I really don’t know what this is about’  
‘You’  
‘Huh?’  
‘It is about you and the utter mess you are in. You need to pull yourself together. You have two jobs ahead of you, first you are going to be a father to that child and frankly someone has to try to save it from the mayhem in that family and you have to be ready to fight for Aaron’  
‘I… look with the baby, I have left money aside, we have set up a trust fund. I brought her to some stupid bloody class, which by the way I’m sure pushed him further away when he found out, thanks to Adam for that and as for winning him back, I will fight every day but he doesn’t care, can’t you see this has been actually good for him, he is in a better place, every time I see him and Adam he is smiling, I think he is happy…..Chas that is what I want for him and if he is happy without me I am not going to try to jeopardise it for him…I can’t, I love him too much’

He burst into tears, it was the first time he had articulated those particular thoughts, but they had been in his head for a while and were largely the reason why he could keep a medium brewery in business the last few weeks.  
‘I’m sorry Chas, it is all my fault and I’m in bits, not that he seems bothered’.  
Ah she thought, there it was the anger and hurt, good she could channel this.  
‘Wrong’  
‘Ah, no he has hardly come near me since he came back’  
‘He has been focussing on himself’  
‘And getting black eyes from the boxing, Adam told me to keep out of that so don’t blame me if he ends up knocked out’  
‘Has anyone looked out for you Robert?’  
‘Yeah, Vic, Diane hell even Faith and Zac have been nice enough, Zac chats to me in the pub, even if Aaron is there, amazing really, I thought you lot would have the pitchforks ready, I mean even Cain fixed the windscreen without charging labour’  
‘We would have pitchforks and more besides, so who do you think got them, Uncle Zac, me bloody mum to look out for you?’  
He looked at her, there was an answer formulating in his mind but he did not want to assume.  
‘Who do you think has ensured that Liv has met you every week since she got back’  
‘I’ve been helping her with Business for school’  
‘This is Liv, I love her but school comes close to the bottom of her list of priorities’  
‘You mean…’  
‘Yes Robert, he has been behind all that. Uncle Zac has been charged with making sure you don’t overdo it on the sauce. My mum, for some unknown reason, he thinks could help lift your spirits and Liv to show you that you still matter, he thought it would show you that he did not hate you, that while he needed to be apart from you he wanted you to know that he had not turned his back on you. He even wanted Charity to take you in but Diane stopped that’  
‘Diane?’  
‘Yeah, he talks to her a few times a week’  
‘Wow’, there was a weight lifting from his shoulders.  
‘I also know you were doing something similar’  
‘What?’  
‘You went to Paddy, gave him what for and told him to do his duty as the man Aaron saw as a father, I’m guessing that was interesting but not as good as the day you told Cain he needed to give more attention to his nephew’  
‘I’m not stupid, he was with Harriet here when I did that’  
‘I know love, you would have been in the boot of the car otherwise’  
He laughed, for the first time in a long time. 

‘Aaron needed to try to fix himself and my boy is doing that. When he is better, he…look Robert, he loves you and he is almost ready to accept that there is a baby and there will be a connection with the mother of that child’  
‘Chas, I will have nothing to do with the baby if he wants that’  
‘Robert, my son is not that man, you know that, Robert it's like putting a jigsaw together. He nearly has it done but there are a few pieces left. He realises that those pieces are you, and I think he is nearly ready to see if you want to slot in, maybe not as you were immediately but to get there and…and he knows that that will include a young master Sugden.’  
‘He said all that to you?’  
‘You mad?, no not in so many words but I’m his Mum, he doesn’t have to tell me, so the question is are you ready?’  
‘I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life’

oOo

Robert walked out of the pub with a spring in his step. He had hope for the first time in ages. It ebbed a little when a fortnight passed but then just as dusk began to settle on an autumnal sky he got a text. ‘Rob, I’d like to talk to ya, would you be able to come over to Mill tomorrow evening, round seven, I’ll have tea ready’. He got a horde of butterflies in his stomach but yeah he was ready.


End file.
